The Face of Evil

A room in the Unknown location

The music echoed in strain of the cold rock walls. Mordante turned and turned, absorbing his mind away from reality, moving with the flow of music.

The walls around him began to morph and change until they changed into the familiar white marble of the palace. He looked around as he walked, he could feel the cool moist breeze flowing. The marble seemed to be alive with colour as if he had been wearing tinted glasses his entire life.

The granite door way stood larger still as he passed through its shinny arch. The stained glass windows played with shadows and light concocting images of the past and present around him as he moved through the corridor. He felt safe here, he felt at home.

The whispers with his name started their ringing teasing, enticing, beckoning for him to come. He tasted the blue crystal water; he could feel its nectar like flow moving through his body.

Heading forth he saw her again, alive with her splendour and greatness waiting for him.

'Lis Fride Tasit'

(You arrived late)

'Glimi Utori Huy Intina'

(Matters of importance held me)

'Ya Nica Fra Utori?

(What is more important?)

'Lok Nica Fra Utori'

(Nothing is more important)

Mordante took her by her hand and started the dance.

'Ruso-ni Nica'

(There is some improvement)

'Intina Nictes Err Rotoyuri'

(I have the best teacher)

'Nica Lok Seha'

(That is correct)

'Utio Intina Kipe Fier'

(Join me in reality)

'Lis Riut Err Sete Naga'

(You ask the same again)

'Jio Err Bolema Yagi? Intina Riobe'

(Does the answer differ? My angel)

'Lok, Hy Jio Lok'

(No it does not)

'Ya Nictesta Intina Jio?'

(What must I do?)

'Err Sete Lis Nica Jio'

(The same you are doing)

'Intina Injimi Ra Lis Nica Fraeta'

(My love for you is infinite)

'Ret Nica Intina'

(As is mine)

'Sug Tas-ni, Intina Injimi'

(A short time then, my love)

'Sug Tas-ni Soinate'

(A short time indeed)

'Shh, U-Intina Fie Err Tak Hy Nishata'

(Shh, let us live the moment and dance)

Mordante caressed her face and her body as they twisted through the dance. This was where he wanted to be, where he wanted to remain, forever.

Dumbledore's Office

The minister of magic and his wife arrived at Hogwarts through Dumbledore's fireplace. As requested by Dumbledore he was not accompanied by his guards.

'What is headmaster?' asked Mr. Weasley more than slightly perturbed with the grave voice and reception.

'Mr. Weasley, Arthur, I don't know how to tell you this,' said Dumbledore

Mrs. Weasley immediately gasped, with a beginning like this it couldn't be good news,

'Your daughter Virginia, was attacked by an unknown person, probably a Death Eater sometime this morning,' said Dumbledore

The tension in the room could be cut by a knife. Mrs. Weasley put her hand to her heart which had suddenly gone dramatically off course.

'Is she alright?' asked Mrs. Weasley.

'She is resting in the hospital wing, I cannot say that she's alright, she has been hit by multiple Crucio curses,' said Dumbledore, 'I am afraid she may have lost her mind, the person responsible has left the castle.'

Mrs. Wesley's mouth was opened with shock, Mr. Weasley who was expecting something perhaps like this was a little more contained.

'Can we see her?' he simply asked unable to think of anything else to say.

'Of course, immediately!' said Dumbledore leading them through the passage way.

They went up the staircase and reached the intended destination, all throughout Arthur tried to support his wife who was walking quite strangely in her current state.

By the time the entered the room Sirius and Harry had already left. Ginny lay on a bed, her face calm and serene, but one look at her eyes and the Weasleys turned away.

For Arthur Weasley this was his worst nightmare coming through, he had always imagined an attack on his family, but this was too terrible to contemplate.

Mrs. Weasley promptly fainted onto the floor, but was saved by a quick twirl of Dumbledore's Wand.

Mr. Weasley lost the use of is legs and slowly sank onto the floor his head in his hands.

'This is my entire fault,' he wept.

'No! It isn't!' Dumbledore said in a clear and firm voice.

It had its desired effect Arthur Weasley snapped out of his spiral of doom.

'If I hadn't become Minister of Magic, if I hadn't been so out spoken against the Dark, I called this upon Ginny,' he continued.

'This was the work of a despicable monster, to add to that the attack was meant not as a warning or a signal to you as Minister of Magic, but a plot far more sinister and evil,' said Dumbledore

'What such plot?' asked Arthur Weasley, helping his wife up front her shocked state.

'That I cannot reveal to you yet, I know it is painful and I have good reasons, but you should know that this is no fault of yours,' said Dumbledore, 'I have already capped the incident off as far as rumours are concerned. The student body knows, due to our faithful rumour machine that is Hogwarts that a girl was found in the fields, they also suspect with no intervention by myself that a girl was practicing flying and simply fell of her broom.'

Mr. Weasley sighed.

'I will leave you alone with her now,' said Dumbledore.

A moment later every one left the mourning Weasleys to themselves with their now disabled daughter. Each who left the room knew their lives would never be the same again.

A hallway in Hogwarts

Harry walked by Sirius's side, who with a few quick wand waves created an illusionary face.

'What am I to do Sirius?' asked Harry once again.

Sirius sighed there were a hundred answers to the question that Harry asked but none of them were or could be the right ones.

'All I wanted was to live up to the expectations everyone had of me and then all this happens,' said Harry his spirit quite downcast.

'No Harry, you must take this in your stride, if you give in to the despair then Voldemort would have accomplished his goal,' said Sirius, 'he wants to break your mind.'

'Well, he's doing a great job so far,' replied Harry.

Sirius internally smiled Harry was kicking back now a sure sign that the spiral was lifting and the dark spirit's effect diminished.

'Not quite,' he replied back, his inner smile radiating outside.

Harry took the hint and the joke and smiled to himself. He was surprised at the effect of smiling; his downcast spirit soared in to the air as his mind shook of the shock, torment and worry. It was like chocolate after a dementors embrace, the sweet water of an oasis in a desert of depression.

'We have to find out who did it,' said Sirius, 'and it will not be an easy task, according to the headmaster's senses the person has already left for some reason.'

'I must find Hermione and explain myself,' said Harry gloomily not at all looking forward to the confrontation. Maybe it was a hallucination, a feeling of guilt rising during the act. The chance is too great and the coincidence too strong. Harry increased his pace of walking.

'Perhaps it will do you good, it is something which you can address at the present,' said Sirius slowly trying to think out the effects of his words as he spoke them.

'Thanks Sirius, I think I will,' said Harry as he broke off to find Hermione.

Sirius watched the lad go off into the maze that was Hogwarts. He was glad that it was not he talking to Hermione; Harry was going to have a rough time. Shaking his head, Sirius travelled to find the rest of the group and finalize a plan of action.

Harry first went to the Gryffindor dormitories.

'Has anyone seen Hermione?' he questioned to the mixed audience present. A tatter of negative answers later he walked through to his room.

The Marauders map! That would be the easiest answer! Harry opened to the bottom of the trunk and took the map out.

'Thank Merlin for this, I solemnly swear I am up to no good,' he said with a pang of guilt for the white lie.

The map revealed Hogwarts as the ink fluidly travelled creating the lines. He searched for the little dot Hermione, but her name wasn't there!

He looked for the familiar faces, Dean, Sirius, Dumbledore; he paused for more than a second at Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. He could see two dots Fred and George reaching an Arthur and Molly. He hardened himself and continued to look.

It was then he noticed Ron Weasley was also no longer on the map.

The Warrior training Centre

Sirius entered the room to find silence. The normally heated debate lay in ruins as the participants looked crestfallen and down cast.

'Sirius,' whispered Fig as she motioned him to take a seat.

'What has been going on?' he whispered to her.

'Nothing! Black,' snapped Professor Snape, 'nothing!'

'What the good professor means Sirius,' said Figg, 'is that we searched the entire grounds for clues of any sort, we found nothing.'

'The wretch simply levitated her on the field, the crime was committed else where,' said McGonagall.

Sirius gulped, Dumbledore had not informed them of Harry's part and role. Should he be silent? Or tell them all?

Sirius began to sweat with the tension.

Arabella mistook this for anger.

'I know Sirius it hurts, but we can't do anything to find out,' she said, 'the ministry will be sending its own teams to look over, but they won't find anything.'

The mention of the Ministry tilted Sirius's mind, he decided to keep quiet. Dumbledore would reveal what he hath to reveal when he hath to reveal.

The silence weighed the room down.

'I do not like this feeling of helplessness,' said McGonagall voicing everyone's fears. The incident took them back to Hogwarts three years previous when the chamber of secrets was opened.

'There are some basic precautions we can take,' said Arabella, 'but what do we tell the students?'

'The Weasley name cannot be told, it may scare the ministry officials they would be hard pressed with their own families,' said McGonagall affirming what Dumbledore had already informed them. 'However, Hogwarts can be put on a maximum alert. We do not know when this madman will strike again. I am afraid we will have to revert to the system we started three years ago.'

The table was silent, they knew very well of the chamber of secrets. Though Sirius himself had not gone through it, both he and Arabella Figg were well versed with the events.

'I agree,' said Professor Snape breaking the haunting silence.

The table universally nodded, the last thing they needed was mass panic in the wizarding world and Hogwarts had to be kept safe. It was the students that made the school or not the school that made the students.

"The truth is usually preferable than lies"

Dumbledore's famous quote went through Sirius's mind as the conversation unfolded. The word "usually" was essential to the entire quote, for the first time since Voldemort's disappearance they had to manipulate the word.

The Hallways of Hogwarts:

Harry walked through the corridors his mind in a whirl. He had looked extremely carefully at the map; Hermione and Ron were simply not there.

It was then the idea hit him. Perhaps, just perhaps she had gone to seek solace with him, with him. Harry punched the wall hard with his fist; a trickle of blood ran down.

Several observers stopped to look at him. His eyes were full of fire, as if madness had taken over him. Visions of what happened with the Slytherin table flashed before the onlookers' eyes. They trembled under his glare.

'What! Bugger off!' he yelled at them as he stormed off.

Unknown Location

Hermione had much to ponder over her life, it flashed by her bit by bit. They were strictly divided into two halves the life before and after the letter.

She had spent a long agonizing time trying to ascertain which the superior of the two was. The life of magic and mystery or that of peace and serenity which was the one she preferred.

The all passed through her mind, the magical folk she had met. Suddenly for no apparent reason her thoughts came to rest on Draco Malfoy, the closest thing to the dark side she had seen as a child.

At that time he had been such a brat, but she had admired his confidence. A radiant glow that surrounded him drew her, until he had called her "mud blood". At that time it had all seemed so fake, good and evil, light and dark, moralistic lectures that bored one to death. An evil deed was missing class.

Then how it all changed, Voldemort entered their lives and changed them forever. What if she hadn't become friends with Harry and Ron? Would she be in this position now?

She would have blended in with the other clueless muggle-borns that inhabited the world. She would have been safe, secure, unscarred. She would not have been here.

The door creaked and Mordante stepped forward into the room.

'Your thoughts on mud-bloods,' Hermione hissed at him.

Mordante looked up in surprise. But the smile never went of his lips.

'They are quite impure,' he replied

'But they can do great things!' she said

'Yes, they can, occasionally, but that is of no consequence.' he replied. 'The natural cycle of life must prevail, Wizards over mud-bloods, mud-bloods over Muggles, Muggles over the rest.'

Hermione stared at him with shock.

'That is the hierarchy of the new world,' said Mordante.

'All humans are born equal,' said Hermione.

'Do not fool yourself. All human beings are born different. Their genes, their ancestry dictates their intelligence, their body, their greatness. The same goes for magic,' he replied.

'But then how do you explain the powerful Muggle-borns?' said Hermione.

'If you regard yourself, you have power because of the immense knowledge you try and gather. Your innate ability to do magic is not that great. Getting marks in school exams is one thing, holding actual power is another. Get out of the bubble that is Hogwarts,' said Mordante cruelly, 'true power is something you will never taste; your genes simply do not allow it.'

Hermione felt her heart stop for a second. She had always used the argument that she got such great test scores and that she could do so much magic. But she never thought of it in that light.

'Besides, the mud-bloods are a spontaneous genetic mutation, some can be powerful I will admit, but only some. There are exceptions, those shall be accepted, and the rest are quite worthless.'

The Hallways of Hogwarts:

Harry was troubled. More troubled than he had ever felt. A blinding jealousy had erupted in his heart.

He was imagining Hermione and Ron together, his hands shook with anger. The hallway lay empty; he had made sure of that when he had decided to sit.

Harry looked around at the ruins, his anger had created. Tables strewn around, mirrors broken and suits of armour bent beyond recognition.

'Calm down!' said someone sternly.

Harry looked up, trying to find the source of the voice.

'Here I am,' said a woman in the painting.

'I'm sorry, I didn't notice you were here,' said Harry to a lady he did not recognise.

'Of course you did not. You were too involved in creating a mess,' the lady mocked.

'I'm sorry,' said Harry again not knowing what else to say; his anger spent.

'You better be, now, what is this all this about?' asked the painting.

He would later wonder why he told her.

'My girlfriend is cheating on me,' said Harry.

'Oh! My,' said the lady shocked, 'did you see her?'

'No,' said Harry realising how pathetic that sounded.

'Well then how?' said the painting.

Harry narrated the parts leaving out most of Ginny's involvement, but keeping the reality of the drug.

'You should have more trust in her,' said the lady, 'she probably went to him to cry on his shoulder.'

'I doubt that,' said Harry.

'Why do you doubt her? Has she ever given you a reason to doubt her?' the lady fired back.

'No,' said Harry suddenly feeling extremely foolish.

'Well, then off with you, go find her!' she said.

Harry got up from his seat on the floor.

'Thank you, er..'

'The names Anna,' said the painting.

'Anna,' repeated Harry thoughtfully, the name had some significance he was sure, but it didn't bring any immediate recognition.

He took leave of Anna and started he search for his missing friends.

Dumbledore's Office

Dumbledore slowly sat on his seat. The weight of his years pulled down his shoulders. He knew the incident with Ginny Weasley would not have taken place had he been in the Castle. For the first time he felt his age. But, the paper in front of him gave him a renewed hope.

The Magic Council

23, Gratin Street,

Geneva,

Switzerland.

To the Hon. Dumbledore

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Dear Sir,

I write to you being my duty to inform you of a critical event. Approximately at twelve o'clock this morning the main offices and conference centres of the International Wizards Council were attacked by forces believed to be that of Voldemort. The council was in session at that point, your honourable presence lacking. We were able to successfully repel the attack and no one was injured.

After the attack, ninety percent of the council voted for armed action against Voldemort...

Dumbledore rubbed his left eye behind his glasses. Finally those fools come to a decision; I had lost all hope that they would.

What surprised Dumbledore however was why did Voldemort attack the council? This would have been the logical conclusion even if the council had been destroyed. The countries would have united anyway.

But a ray of hope shone through, the council once aggravated was quick in action and would do much.

'Hope is never lost,' said Dumbledore, 'hope is never lost.'

Voldemort

Lord Voldemort was angry, very angry. Lucius Malfoy sensed the anger give off the Lord even though his face showed nothing.

'Who did this?' said Voldemort.

'Sire, it was not us,' said Lucius Malfoy trebling.

'Then?' said Voldemort.

'I, I, will find out immediately,' stammered Lucius.

Somewhere in Europe

Victor Grindeck raised the glass of wine to his lips. The Cabernet laid down by him ten years ago tasted excellent.

'A toast, to the Victory of the light,' he said to the air.

It had been him, him and his group who had masqueraded as Death Eaters and attacked the Council, forcing the Council to act.

'All is fair in love and war,' he said obviously very drunk and let out a sharp giggle.

Hogwarts

Harry had searched every possible location even though the map showed nothing to him. His eyes were red from tears and other pressures.

'Must find Sirius,' he breathed out heavily as he tracked him down using the map.

A couple of turns later he ran into him.

'There you are!' said Sirius.

'I can't find them!' exclaimed Harry back.

'Find who or what Harry?' said Sirius placing a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder.

'Hermione and Ron,' said Harry again loudly.

'Show me the map!' said Sirius grabbing it from Harry's hands. Sirius had recognised his work immediately.

Sirius looked down at the map as an expert would a gem; long hours had gone into its development.

'You are right,' was the conclusion from Sirius, 'they are not there.'

Harry looked at him with a didn't-I-just-say-that look.

'No need to panic yet, there are a dozen possible explanations,' said Sirius trying to prevent the sour taste in his mouth from spilling out in words.

'Name one,' said Harry quietly.

Sirius could think of none. 'Let us consult with Dumbledore.'

Unknown Location:

Hermione rose up from her lying down position. This was getting very old very fast she thought. Her first action was to look around for Voldemort's heir; he wasn't present in the room.

The details of their conversation spun in her head around and around.

Mordante looked at Hermione from his vantage point. He knew she could not see him. Enough is enough. This charade cannot go on any longer. Mordante was running out of time. A strange smile took to his lips as he saw Hermione in her helpless position.

She looks beautiful he thought. He slapped himself, hard. Look at me; I am still lusting after a mud-blood. What will my angel say to me? I must get her out of my system. I must!

Dumbledore's Office:

'The search has been conducted, we have not found them,' said a grim Dumbledore to Sirius and Harry. 'It appears they are no longer in Hogwarts or the surrounding areas.'

Harry was looking at his shoes as if they held the answer to the world's problems and Sirius shook his head. 'Headmaster, what does this mean?'

'It means the mystery of the disappearance of that power, the one that I sensed but could not find, has been solved further, it left while taking them,' said Dumbledore.

Harry looked up into Dumbledore's eyes, the familiar twinkle was no longer there, and it had been replaced with cold, frost so cold that it burned with a blue flame.

'They, they have been kidnapped?' said Harry hardly believing the words that were coming out of his mouth.

'Yes,' said Dumbledore his fore head showing the wrinkles of worry.

'Why?' said Harry.

Both Dumbledore and Sirius hesitated, everyone knew the answer, but none were willing to say it.

'It is because of me, isn't it?' said Harry, 'he's using them to get to me.'

'Harry, you must not attempt anything foolish,' said Dumbledore.

'I have to get them back!' said Harry.

'We understand Harry how you feel Harry,' said Sirius, 'but this is not something you can do.'

'The Order and Hogwarts will put all its resources together to get them back safely. The Ministry will also be of aid,' said Dumbledore, 'but, you may be contacted by Voldemort, Harry please do not act on your own. Inform us.'

Sirius nodded his head in agreement.

Harry had changed over the last few months. He knew they would say this, he also knew it would be pointless to argue. Truth and lies don't matter anymore.

'I won't,' said Harry.

A smile of relief came on Sirius's face as he hugged Harry.

'Thank you, thank you, Harry,' said Dumbledore greatly relieved.

'May I return to my room?' said Harry.

Dumbledore nodded and Harry left the room. Once he was out of earshot.

'Keep an eye on him,' said Dumbledore, 'I must heap more sorrow on the Weasley family.'

Sirius nodded, Harry was acting exactly like James had done so many years ago.

Unknown Location

Mordante appeared out of the shadows much to Hermione's shock.

He started whispering spells in the dark language his hand raised slightly.

The cage that surrounded Hermione disappeared. She let out a scream of surprise as she started to fall towards the floor.

He moved slowly to her falling figure.

Chains appeared from thin air, tying her wrist and her legs, stretching them far apart. They connected their ends to the floor. She fell on the floor her face towards the ceiling.

He looked down at her, her bewildered face looked up, neck slightly strained to see him.

A collar type of device locked her head down to the floor. She was unable to speak.

Mordante walked over her.

Hermione's eyes went wide as she heard the last spell, the effects were immediate. Her clothes began to melt away. She struggled to somehow keep some amount of her dignity, but to no avail.

'I've wanted this for years,' he said as he began undoing his robe.